Improper Sanitation Practices

Abstract

Poor sanitation is a global problem. According to a report jointly published by the World Health Organization and UNICEF in 2020, over half of the world’s population is using sanitation services that threaten human and environmental health. Sanitation is not only vital for health and overall development but is also a universal human right for all the world’s individuals. However, the sanitation situation is alarming in developing and underdeveloped nations. In India, the state of sanitation has improved in recent years through sanitation-focused policy level implementations but still appears far behind achieving the adequate sanitation for all in real sense.

This chapter is based largely on the primary data collected from the slum clusters of Delhi, India, and also has references of secondary data. It will focus on the individual’s contemporary sanitation practices and their rationale behind chosen practices. The conceptual framework drawn from the theory of rational choice has been used to understand the sanitation practices. The understanding of the rationality has further revealed a link with the sanitation facilities that are available to the people and provided by the government. The discussion in this chapter is about a detailed analysis of sanitation facilities provided by the government to the urban poor living in the slum clusters and empirical evidences drawn from the field. The evidence has been used to develop an argument about the individual’s sanitation practices, rational choices, facilities provided by the government, and also looked into the problem in the light of pandemic situation. In the conclusion, this chapter draws analysis of the factors contributing to sanitation issues in the slums, role played by contemporary Indian sanitation policy(s) to address the problem of sanitation in the region of national capital and further recommends innovations in affordable sanitation technology to make it sustainable.